It appears that the worst free agent acquisition in the history of the Chargers will leave town without us having answered one question.

What exactly would it have taken for Robert Meachem to have started another game?

We thought maybe it would be enough that Danario Alexander is out for the season after tearing his ACL and Eddie Royal is still nursing a bruised lung and Malcom Floyd and Vincent Brown were held out of Thursday’s preseason finale along with the rest of the team’s starters.

But no. Journeyman Seyi Ajirotutu was the preferred option to get the early snaps.

Meachem, the face of last year’s free agency folly, did get in on the Chargers’ first offensive possession Thursday night against the San Francisco 49ers in a 41-6 loss. He caught his first pass on the final play of the first quarter. He walked off the field having suffered a concussion after making a catch and getting hit in the third quarter.

He didn’t return, and he won’t return.

You can argue that David Boston getting $12 million guaranteed in 2003 before being traded after one season was worse than the $14 million in iron clad payments awarded Meachem last April.

It wasn’t.

Boston may have been a borderline personality and a drug abuser, but he caught 70 passes (including seven touchdowns) in his only season in San Diego. Meachem, by all accounts a great guy, was even worse on the field than his 14 catches for 207 yards indicate.

It’s a shame on many levels. But he can’t run any more, sometimes doesn’t even seem to be trying. It has actually stunned some people at Chargers Park this year, visitors and those who work there.

Meachem played 110 exhibition snaps going into Thursday, a number more on par with an undrafted rookie and more than twice as many snaps as he took the second half of the 2012 regular season.

Fact is, he lost the trust of Philip Rivers last year – an inability to get open, lack of precision and spotty hands rendering him pretty much useless.

Rivers said earlier this summer he and Meachem were more on the same page this year. He essentially made excuses for Meachem’s poor debut and spoke optimistically about ‘13.

The two talked after last season and Rivers told Meachem to look forward to a “fresh start.”

Said Rivers recently: “It’s getting a confidence and a rhythm back. Playing receiver, playing running back, playing quarterback, tight end, I think those skill positions offensively, are a lot like a jump shooter. You have to get flowing and into a rhythm.“

That was a few days before the exhibition opener, in which Meachem ran the wrong route on the first ball thrown his way and quit on a comeback route on the only other pass his way. Both those passes were from Charlie Whitehurst -- because the first team played just one series that night, and Meachem was not part of the first team.